O'NEAL, Shaq(uille) Rashaun

(b. 6 March 1972 in Newark, New Jersey), one of the top players in the National Basketball Association (NBA) at the end of the twentieth century who capitalized on his sports celebrity to pursue projects in the music and entertainment industries.

O'Neal, whose first names mean "little warrior," was one of two sons and two daughters of Philip Harrison, a career serviceman in the military, and Lucille O'Neal, a municipal employee. His biological father, Joe Taney, abandoned the family shortly after O'Neal's birth. During O'Neal's childhood, Harrison was transferred to several different army bases, and the boy had difficulty making friends. He also was teased about his height; by age thirteen, O'Neal was six feet, five inches tall.

As an adolescent O'Neal found he could get attention by pulling the school's fire alarms, and he was almost expelled for his displays of bad temper. Concerned about his poor behavior, his parents encouraged him to play basketball, baseball, and football, although O'Neal showed little natural athletic talent. When he was twelve the family was stationed in West Germany, where O'Neal attended a basketball clinic given by Dale Brown, the head coach at Louisiana State University (LSU). Brown could not believe that O'Neal was only thirteen years old and already wore a size seventeen shoe. Brown urged Harrison to eventually enroll his son at LSU in Baton Rouge. Ironically, O'Neal was cut from his ninth-grade basketball team; the coach told him that his feet were too big and his movements too clumsy.

In 1987 Harrison was stationed at Fort Sam Houston, Texas, and moved the family to San Antonio, where O'Neal attended Robert G. Cole Senior High School and played center for the basketball team. At six feet, ten inches tall and 250 pounds, he was bigger and stronger than the other centers in the league and helped his team win the state championship. During his two years at Cole he averaged 32 points, 22 rebounds, and 8 blocked shots per game, and his team achieved a 68–1 record. O'Neal set numerous scoring and rebounding records. He also grew to his adult height of seven feet, one inch. Following his senior year he was invited to play in the McDonald's High School All-America game, in which he scored eighteen points and grabbed sixteen rebounds. Upon graduation in 1989, O'Neal was one of the top college recruits, but he had already decided to attend LSU.

O'Neal enrolled at LSU in 1990, and truly began to blossom, even though he found it difficult being away from home for the first time. The big freshman had a solid season in the tough Southeastern Conference. In 1990 he averaged a respectable 13.9 points per game, but he received more attention for his ability to rebound and block shots. As a first-year player O'Neal averaged more than twelve rebounds per game, an impressive total for one so young and so new to big-time college basketball. He also established a conference record of 115 blocked shots. During his first season he found that opponents would double and triple team him. In response, O'Neal learned to shoot a jump shot and a hook shot, quickly gaining a reputation as one of the best centers in college basketball. He played with incredible strength and agility, achieving first-team All-America honors.

In his second varsity season at LSU, O'Neal made a great leap forward. He doubled his scoring average and increased his rebounding average to 14.6 per game, leading the nation in that category. After his sophomore season he was named the Player of the Year by Sports Illustrated, the Associated Press, and United Press International. Because of the beating O'Neal was taking each night in the pivot and concern over his family's modest means, he decided to turn professional. Although he left LSU in 1992 without earning a degree, he later received a B.A. in general studies with a minor in political science in December 2000, through LSU's independent study program.

On 24 June 1992 O'Neal was selected in the first round by the Orlando (Florida) Magic, an expansion team. The Magic signed him to a seven-year, $40 million contract, making him professional basketball's highest-paid rookie. Even before O'Neal decided to leave LSU and become eligible for the NBA draft, he was deemed one of the most marketable young players ever. This was somewhat surprising, given that he had not led his college team to a National Collegiate Athletic Association championship, and it was uncertain that he would develop into a dominating player of the caliber of Kareem Abdul-Jabbar, Patrick Ewing, or Michael Jordan. However, in addition to his contract, O'Neal signed lucrative endorsements and became an instant multimillionaire.

O'Neal had a great first year in the NBA. He was voted the Rookie of the Year and was selected to start in the All-Star game, the first rookie to do so since Jordan in 1985. Basketball fans in NBA cities flocked to see the new young superstar and the rapidly improving Magic. O'Neal was perhaps the strongest player in the league, even as a rookie, and fans loved to watch his thunderous dunks, which occasionally pulled the basket down off its support stand.

In O'Neal's second season with the Magic (1993–1994), the team made it to the NBA finals for the first time, and O'Neal was named the Player of the Week. Off the court he endorsed Pepsi and Reebok, recorded a song with the Brooklyn rap trio Fu-Schnickens, and released his successful first album, Shaq Diesel (1993). He also appeared on Fu-Schnickens's 1994 top-forty single "What's Up Doc? (Can We Rock)." Thanks to a slew of guest stars, O'Neal's second album, Shaq-Fu Da Return (1994), established him as a gold-certified rap artist. His first single, "Biological Didn't Bother," quickly rose to the top twenty, and led to a collaboration with the singer Michael Jackson on the album MJ's HIStory (1995).

O'Neal realized after the 1995 season that he would need to mature both physically and mentally before he could win a championship ring. The Magic suffered from player injuries for the next two seasons, including O'Neal's; he had plantar fascitis (inflammation of a ligament) in his right foot that limited his movement and made pushoffs difficult. Some sportswriters noted his pathetic free-throw shooting (53.3 percent in 1994–1995) and said that, with his busy music career, he was spreading himself too thin to ever fulfill his enormous basketball potential. O'Neal also had started a movie career, playing his first leading role as a rapping genie in Disney's Kazaam (1996). He next starred in Steel (1997), as a larger-than-life DC Comics superhero.

Despite his off-court commitments, in 1995 O'Neal led Orlando to an Eastern Conference crown and the NBA finals, where they were swept by the Houston Rockets. In 1996, after being swept again in the play-offs (this time by the Chicago Bulls), O'Neal signed a seven-year, $120 million contract with the Los Angeles Lakers. His first year with the Lakers was a learning experience, and the team lost to the Utah Jazz in the conference semifinals. However, by the 2000 season O'Neal had developed in both strength and agility, and he helped lead the Lakers to their first NBA championship. This outstanding feat was repeated in the 2001 season.

In 2001 O'Neal was seven feet, one inch tall, weighed 310 pounds, and wore a size 22 shoe. With best-selling rap recordings and Hollywood movies to his credit, the charismatic player had emerged as a multifaceted pop-culture icon, promoted by the NBA and his upmarket corporate sponsors as a young superstar equipped to carry the league's message to a new, global generation of fans.

O'Neal has written two autobiographies, Shaq Attaq!: My Rookie Years (1993), with Jack McCallum; and Shaq Talks Back (2001). He also has written a children's book, Shaq and the Beanstalk and Other Very Tall Tales (1999), and Shaq Talks Back: The Uncensored Word on My Life and Winning in the NBA (2001). Books by other authors about O'Neal's career are Barry Cooper, The Magic Shaq: A Season Inside the Orlando Magic (1993), and Dennis Eichhorn, Shaq (1995). Further information can be found in Phil Taylor, "Unstoppable," Sports Illustrated (4 June 2001).

Reed B. Markham